Green Disposable Diapers

Sometimes, you can’t rely solely on prefold cloth diapers. There may be times when you want to have some disposable diapers on hand. Perhaps you want to carry a few in your diaper bag in case you misjudge how many prefolds you’ll need when you are out. Perhaps you want to have a package of disposables at home for those occasional times when you don’t get your cloth diapers washed on time or (as often happens where I live during the winter), you have multi-hour power outages and you just can’t do your laundry when you had planned to.

There are a few brands of disposable diapers that are friendly to the planet. I’m going to talk about 3 kinds here. There may be others, but these are the ones that seem most popular and easy to find.

Seventh Generation, a company very well known for its environmentally friendly cleaning and bathroom supplies makes a disposable diaper as well. According to Seventh Generation’s website, their diapers are made of “chlorine free wood pulp fluff, sodium polyacrylate (also referred to as SAP or absorbent gel), polyolefin nonwoven fabric, adhesives, polyolefin film, synthetic rubber elastic strands.” The diapers are hypoallergenic and fragrance and latex free. The Daily Green, which has done a review of disposable diapers, states their research shows that the SAP (or absorbent gel) is “chemically inert” and “non-toxic, not carcinogenic, and non-irritating to the skin.”

To the extent that you wish to avoid absorbent gels altogether, however, the Tushies brand is the way to go. Tushies are gel-free, latex-free, perfume-free, dye-free, GMO-free and chlorine-free. On the Tushies website, the diaper is described as “assembled in the U.S.A. with domestic materials & certified non-chlorine bleached woodpulp from Scandinavian sustainable, renewable, family-owned forests!” The company also touts Tushies as “the only disposable diaper with certified non-chlorine bleached woodpulp blended with cotton for natural high absorbency.” In other words, Tushies diapers do not use any gel. Because Tushies diapers do not contain an absorbent gel, you will need to change your baby’s diaper more frequently than if you use a diaper with the gel.

gDiapers has created a diaper that is an interesting blend of reusable and disposable. The gDiaper is composed of two parts: the outer pant and the inner liner/insert. The outer pant – either the tiny gPants (for newborns starting at 6 pounds) or the little gPants (for babies from 8-36 pounds)is a essentially a reusable cotton diaper cover. It comes in a wide range of colors and has no elemental chlorine, perfumes or latex.

Instead of putting a prefold cloth diaper inside this diaper cover, however, you instead use a liner/insert. This can be disposable or reusable. The disposable inserts, which are referred to as diaper refills (or gRefills), are biodegradable and are made of “sustainably farmed wood fluff pulp, with sodium polyacrylate (SAP) for absorbency, and cellulose rayon.” There is no plastic in this diaper. The biodegradable diaper gRefills come in packs of 40 (small) and 32 (medium/large). You can buy them by the case.

In the alternative, you can use a reusable cloth diaper insert, called gCloth. According to the company’s website, “gCloth are designed specifically to fit our soft little gPants so they don’t require any folding. They provide the same trim fit as our biodegradable gRefills without giving up the absorbency.” The gCloth inserts are made of four layers of microfleece and hemp/cotton.